While Shepherds Washed My Socks Read online

  The younger part of the school (Years 7 and 8) were making paper chains and skipping about in the “playground” as some of them still put it. They all seemed to be having way too much fun, especially Malice’s kid sister Ceri and her boy mates Adam and Danny who for some reason were allowed to gatecrash the Key Stage 4 party despite being only about twelve. I almost believed they’d done this to make Charlie jealous, and lawd knows it was working.

  We were all leaning against the radiators in the library, doing our best to ignore him and/or derive interesting facts about Jordy from that careless mind of his, when Charlie suddenly said, in a terrible American cheerleader accent, “Is there absolutely nothing you guys can think of to talk about except my BFF?”

  “Well, sor-ree!” I sighed. “If you’re not content with our hospitality, why don’t you just go and find Andy and play Chunderman and Twatwoman or whatever?”

  “Hey, that was one time! We were really bored.”

  “So what?!” Keisha laughed. “You could go and chuck mud at each other, like on Cross Country!”

  “Not funny – you’re not responsible for your actions when intoxicated!” he insisted, in a voice like the guy on the “Don’t Drink And Drive – Don’t Drink and D I E” DVDS from PSHE.

  “Intoxicated my arse!”

  “What with?”

  “Oh, shut up you two!” Chantalle snapped. She’d clearly had enough of being “hospitable” to her ex-boyfriend. “And Charlie, you’re pathetic hanging around us all the time – there’s got to be something more fun to do than make us feel uncomfortable in our own free time!”

  As opposed to any other time…

  “Hey, it’s a free country! If you fancy me, just say the word…” he said, oddly, without any kind of feeling. (I’m not even sure what word he was aiming for.)

  “Why do you sound like you haven’t got a soul?” I asked, curiously.

  “Duh, ’cause I sold it to Andy and he ate it…”

  “Give us a break. We’re even-stevens at the moment. I owe you nothing and you never told us where Andy was, either.”

  “Why, are you looking for him?”

  “No, I was wondering if you might like to… look for him, I mean.”

  “Take a hint?!” added Keisha, sparkling from the eye area in a naturally growly way, so not just because of her festive gold ’shadow.

  “He’s not really my best friend anymore,” Charlie sighed, knowing when it was time to own up. “He sort-of went off with Jordy, and they don’t want to talk to me.”

  I more expected Kitty to complain about her friends evaporating at random, but Charlie wouldn’t exactly be last on the list of social failures…

  “What, he thinks you told Mr Wordsworth that he likes me?”

  “Some friend he is anyway, if he’s more than willing to saturate your Superman undies at a moment’s notice,” mumbled Danielle, through a mouthful of Penguin.

  “For God’s sake, SHUT uuup!” Charlie wailed.

  “OK, OK, don’t wet yourself over it,” Rachel spluttered.

  “I think I’m better off on my own!” he yelled, and stormed off.

  We definitely thought so, too. He’d followed us everywhere except the girls’ toilets, and was ready to try that until Keisha motioned to kick him in the groin with her pointy patent dollies.

  * * *

  “I think he’s quite sweet really…”

  As far as I could tell, Kay was cooing over one of the (many) baby guinea pigs in the garden.

  “Mmm…”

  “Charlie, I mean.”

  “You what?!”

  “I think boys are really lovable when they’re depressed. Don’t you just wanna hug them?”

  I shuddered. “So… if he went all broken down and cutty, that’d make you go jellyfish? You’re nice.”

  “I don’t mean like that; it’s just a nice distraction from school watching him mope around like a little stray puppy.”

  “Dear lawd, Devon, please never actually become a therapist!”

  “Oh, face it, he’s lonely and you’re lonely too – be nice to each other!”

  I seethed. “I understand that you really do fantasise that this helps, but sadly we don’t live in Moonboots land – we can’t pull Charlie out of the poo; he has to learn to swim!”

  “Do you ever listen to yourself when you talk, Harley?”

  “I’m not in the habit of having conversations with myself, no,” I managed, although that wasn’t even strictly true.

  “That’d be why you don’t know your own phone number then, wouldn’t it?!” she tittered, following as bonkers a link as she’d alleged that I ever could. That was the point where I slumped dramatically over on the hutch and scraped my forehead on its grey-glitter-sandpapery roof. Ow.

  #8 Equal Opportunities Offender

  Charlie had his sunglasses on again, but not his caffeine trousers and wide eyes.

  He was slumped in his chair at the back of the classroom, glowering at Mr Wordsworth in a kind of grungy sulk. Somehow, our telepathic teacher had sensed this (although he could certainly not see Charlie’s eyes for the black glasses) and decided to do something about it all the same.

  “Andy, could you please go and ask Mrs Phillips for that video back; the one Marilyn borrowed on Friday?”

  Andy grunted and went out of the room. Mr Wordsworth wandered over to Andy and Charlie’s table, began to leaf through Andy’s English book (he has undeniable right to do that, being the English teacher) and after finding nothing useful in it, started scrutinising his homework diary. A tiny smile played across his face; he winked at Charlie, replacing everything as it was.

  Andy returned, handed over the video, and slouched back into his seat. He crossed his eyes at the page and began to scrawl something along the lines of the Starter Activity we were supposed to have done already. The moment he was sure Andy wasn’t looking, Mr Wordsworth set to work at the board. He drew a great big loveheart and in an odd gothic handwriting I hadn’t seen him use before, wrote three words in the middle of it:

  Andy loves Harley.

  Several people sniggered.

  I just scowled at the board. He couldn’t have written that in his diary.

  I turned to look at Andy. Justin kicked him across the aisle (he kicked Andy from across the aisle, I mean to say – he didn’t boot him all that way), a motion for him to look up at the board. He looked up at the board as if he was going to be sick. All a joke, then.

  “No, Sir, I don’t! Honestly, I don’t! Swear to God!” he protested, indignantly. The cynic in me realised that “swear to God” wasn’t much, coming from such a vocal atheist.

  Mr Wordsworth added: The more he tries to deny it, the more people will think it’s true…

  Everyone cracked up.

  “But I don’t!”

  Andy rushed up to the board, in a vain attempt to scrub it off. Mr Wordsworth wouldn’t let him past. He didn’t need to make physical contact – just stood so that there was no way Andy could get close enough. Mr Wordsworth continued to write: Andy Godfrey loves – (not LIKES, but LOVES) Harley Hartley.

  Again, most of the class creased up, except Andy and, let’s not forget, me.

  I felt myself turning red – the same sort of prickling humiliation that Charlie must’ve felt on Friday. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t done anything to wind anyone up, and I’d even felt bad for him when it happened, but Mr W’s attempts at embarrassing Andy were equally affecting me.

  “Terribly sorry Andy, but it’s somebody else’s turn to be embarrassed now – I’m a very fair person, you see.” He smiled apologetically, which just wound me up more.

  “B-but, how could you get that sort of information? Charlie?!”

  “Are you trying to say that it’s true?” The teacher raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, no, but… did he tell you this, Sir?”

  “No, of course not – but I do have a very reliable source!” He tapped his nose.

  Everybody was in peals o
f laughter by then – even me. After all, the embarrassment was rightfully his, and he was very welcome to it…

  #9 Superstarring Charlie / Zak / Kitty

  “I’m hungry!”

  “Hi, I’m Harley; pleased to meet you,” I replied, wryly.

  “I’m Mary!” wafted Kitty, with a wave of a pink wad of paper.

  “I’m bored!”

  “You’re beautifu-ul…” fuzzed Aimee’s mobile phone to greet an incoming text (or boost her already bursting self-esteem).

  “Hang on!” I groaned, with sudden realisation. “Did you say you were Mary? In the school Nativity? Which is in four days’ time? And they gave you the script today?!”

  “Yup!” Kitty beamed. “It was going to be Brooke, but she’s got tonsillitis. You have to help me learn the lines, and I need a Mary costume!”

  Ambitious as she is, I’d pictured my little sister more as background angel or even sheep material. “Well, I’ll do the lines,” I offered. “But don’t ask me about the Textiles area. I dropped that last year for a reason!” I added the last bit to no one in particular.

  Zak (almost) saved the day. “Get Charlie to make the outfit! His old black hoodie would be like a dress on Kit!”

  “No waaay!” Charlie whinged. “How many young Jewish virgins go about in tatty Bullet For My Valentine merch anyway?”

  “Take it from me, Chargrill, this is the twenty-first century,” Zak reasoned. “There must be plenty of ’em out there – maybe even one for you!”

  “I meant about two-thousand years ago!” Charlie growled.

  “Gahh, who cares anyway?” I shrugged. “Kay can do it as payback for being rude to me.”

  I hadn’t been going to say anything, but I had to open my mouth to lick the tempting candy cane I’d unwrapped five minutes ago only to let stick to my hand when the sibs distracted me. And when I opened my mouth, a betrayal shot out: “She told me she fancies you.”

  “Sh- yeah right! Although I am naturally beautiful.” He grinned, tossing his hair which seemed to be getting longer by the second.

  “You? Naturally beautiful? After your little accident? Don’t make me laugh!” snorted Zak, who was definitely taking it too far.

  “That… was… not… my fault!” he frothed back. He’d gone for the “it was Andy” option at school, and drawn the pity card at home.

  This made Zak titter more and more, but he hadn’t even been there. “It never is, Charlie; it never is.” He rolled up the sleeves of his T-shirt, motioning to start a mock wrestling match.

  Charlie wrenched off his own top and made as if to strangle Zak with it, muttering nonsensically: “I’ll show you ‘never’, you little-”

  “Aww, how very cute,” snarked Aimee, from her vantage point on the sofa. “Both the little scabs have matching little scabs of their own!”

  “This is no scab!” protested Zak, flexing his ten-year-old muscles and stroking his shoulder mole affectionately. “This is my extra brain, with a gazillion gigabyte memory and built in mp3 player!”

  “And this,” enthused Charlie, not to be outdone, losing the fight with Hendrix to keep hold of his Avenged top, “is a tattoo! I was gonna get Kermit the Frog done, but I figured the teachers would find a little chocolate heart more acceptable.”

  Because the teachers would have so many opportunities to eye up his chest mole outside of swimming…

  “I’m off to get Ry’s Crimby prez,” said Zak, suddenly, heading into the hall and unhooking his waterproof coat.

  “Very funny boys,” mumbled Aimee, obliviously, now inside the fridge. “Now who’s eaten all the cheese?”

  Charlie grabbed the said Bullet hoodie (forgetting his shirt) and schlepped friendlessly off to the record shop.

  * * *

  “If you’re willing to sort Kitty out a costume for the Nativity, I’ll tell you how to get a glimpse of Charlie’s very own chest.”

  “You are joking,” said Kay, three pins slipping out of her mouth to be lost in the carpet around her tapestry of an animal-laden stable.

  “Not at all,” I said, schemingly.

  “Deal!”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, of course I’ll make Kitty’s costume, but I was actually just winding you up about Charlie. So there.”

  “I don’t believe you, but anyway – it’s Mary, and has to be ready by Friday.”

  “Sure, fine. There’s an old nun outfit I could modify and be done in no time at all!”

  I didn’t even want to ask why Kay had a nun outfit…

  She looked at me expectantly.

  I hmphed a bit, and finally said, “Just ask him about his mole.”

  * * *

  “Innkeeper, Innkeeper, please let us in!”

  “This needs a little modernisation: Yo, inkeep-dude, I’m nine months preg-ting with God’s baby, and my waters just broke – have a bitta sympafee!” Zak cried out in his “best” rapper voice.

  “Look,” I sighed. “If you helping at all, do it properly. I understand that you’re totally gutted that you don’t get a Nativity in the Juniors, but get over it!”

  “Fine. No, we have no more room at our inn; go find yourselves a barn in hoboland-”

  “Properly!”

  “Sorry, we have no more room at our inn, but there’s a stable out the back that might do? …Cue… music for how do you say this word?”

  “You don’t need to say that bit!”

  He ran his fingers through the wonky spikes on his head. “Whatever, off to watch Jackass.”

  “I’ll do it,” I reassured Kitty. “Let’s try it again: One day, an angel appeared to her. It was Angel Gabrielle… hang on, isn’t it supposed to be Gabriel? Gabriel’s a boy; Gabrielle’s a girl!”

  “Miss didn’t want to be sexist.”

  “Gee… are they having a female Jesus, too?”

  “No, but…”

  “D’you think you can do all these lines? ’Cause if you’re not sure, we’d better make sure your teacher knows right away.”

  “Yeah…” she quivered, sounding a bit unsure. “Are you coming to see it?”

  “Yes. Miss Atherfold said she wanted prompts, didn’t she?”

  “Yup. She also asked if Charlie was coming.”

  “No. He’s doing that Battle Of The Bands thing on Friday after school.”

  “The play isn’t after school,” said Kitty. “And isn’t Charlie scared of guitars?”

  Oops. We might’ve teased him so much that even Kitty had caught on.

  “I’m being a stage hand,” explained Charlie, who was uselessly flumped on the sofa instead of helping with the very important business of Kitty’s lines.

  “Is Devon coming too?”

  Kitty had taken an absurd new liking to my mad mate and her dopey nickname, and seemed more than happy for her to tag along and trail glitter all over the pint-sized shepherds and that.

  “Probably. We’ve got the afternoon off anyway, if we finish Cross Country in time.”

  “Don’t remind me…” groaned Charlie. “Pulling a sickie if I can help it.”

  “Just like yesterday?” I tittered, remembering how I’d overheard him lamenting his “time of the month” to Mr Ball in the crush hall on Monday. Ballsy had blatantly only let him off because he couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of diving in to rescue him again. “Not advised.”

  “You’re right. It’s not the Cross Country I’m afraid of – only the memory.”

  “Get over it, Charlie. It could’ve been so much worse – a) Malice already hated the sight of you, b) it’s not as if you actually did anything stupid, other than thinking you could win Cross Country with caffeine, and c) most right-minded people have already forgotten, and THIS IS THE LAST TIME I AM DISCUSSING IT WITH YOU!!”

  “Yeah, Charlie,” said Kitty, in her best teenager voice. “How can we ever forget about it if you always talk about it?”

  “See?” I said smugly. “The seven-year-old has said it. No more!”

  #
10 A Mouse & A Mishap…

  “This mouse is a boy. Without doubt.”

  “Thanks for that, Zak,” I sighed. “Now put it back into the wild. You shouldn’t keep wild animals as pets.”

  Zak had abetted Kitty in “rescuing” a mouse they’d found in the kitchen last night, and I was trying to convince them that it was a) cruel, and b) unhygienic (as suggested by Harry) to keep it.

  Kitty stated the obvious to me, dressed in her just-delivered Mary outfit: “He was in a shoebox last night, but he ate through it and he got out.”

  “I know, Kit.”

  “D’you think it’d be alright for him to share Eminem’s cage?”

  “I don’t think so, Zak,” I panicked. Thoughts of squashed mouse soufflé served up by a rather plump rat were racing through my fuzzy brain.

  “So what’ll we do about him?”

  I gave in to the two pairs of puppylike Christmas Sibling eyes gazing up at me. “I guess I’ll see if Fern and her dad have anything.”

  Ah. That was the something-that-I-hadn’t-done-this-week-and-almost-definitely-should’ve. Fern had been absent from school long enough to warrant a search party, and I hadn’t even called. What a bad friend I was…

  *****

  Come right up, said the piece of cardboard box hanging out of the flat window. Well, it didn’t say it out loud, but presumably Fern had written it.

  I did go up. She was curled up in her pink Barbie bedspread in her very pink bedroom, with a box of pale pink tissues on her bedside table. An even more pink fluffy toy rabbit sat beside her, with a vaguely grumpy expression stitched on his or her face.

  I can’t speak, proclaimed another piece of cardboard, also advertising glow-in-the-dark cat collars, but that wasn’t the bit I was meant to read.

  “Right… Has anyone else been to see you?”

  I immediately realised that it would probably have been nicer to ask why she couldn’t speak, or if it was serious, but she was scribbling away already.

  No. Dad has his work cut out running the shop without me, and he just had to sack the saturday bloke cos he gave someone a huge discount just for being pretty.